Mahathir Mohamad

Mahathir Mohamad (10 July 1925-) was Prime Minister of Malaysia from 16 July 1981 to 31 October 2003 (succeeding Hussein Onn and preceding Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) and from 10 May 2018 (succeeding Najib Razak). Initially a UMNO politician, he later returned to power as a leader of the Pakatan Harapan opposition coalition.

Biography
Mahathir Mohamad was born in Alor Setar, Malaya in 1925, and he studied medicine and opened a practice. A member of UMNO, he became an MP in 1964 until its suspension in 1969. He was expelled from the party because of his outspoken hostility to Tunku Abdul Rahman's policy of compromise between the Malays, Chinese, and Indians of the population, advocating the predominance of the Malays instead. Readmitted as a sign of UMNO's reversal from Tunku Abdul Rahman's ideals, he became Minister of Education in 1974, and Deputy Prime Minister in 1976. In 1981, he became Prime Minister, and, as a populist nationalist, he was again confirmed in office on 25 April 1995, when his UMNO-dominated Barisan Nasional coalition received a record two-thirds majority. He left office in 2003, and he would go on to criticize his hand-picked successors Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak. In 2016, he formed the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (PPBM), and he was the Pakatan Harapan coalition's 2018 prime ministerial candidate. He became Malaysia's first Prime Minister not to represent the Barisan Nasional coalition.